Mathura: The Kerala Union of Working Journalists (KUWJ) have moved the Supreme Court to allow Siddique Kappan's family and lawyers to meet him.
Kerala journalist Kappan and three others - Atiqur Rahman, Aalam and Masood were arrested by Mathura police on October 5, while they were on their way to the village in Hathras to meet the family members of the gang-rape-cum-murder victim there.
A habeas corpus plea is already pending in the Supreme Court seeking relief for Kappan. However, the court had asked KUWJ to amend the petition to include further developments in the case.
The lawyers had gone to Mathura, where Kappan is presently lodged, for the purpose of gathering more information on the case, however, it is alleged that Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) Mathura, “without any justifiable grounds" denied permission for the same, Live Law reported.
Arrested initially on suspicion of being a threat to the peace, the four were booked two days later on a slew of stringent charges, including those of sedition and terrorism, and were sent to a Mathura jail under the judicial custody.
The Crime Branch of the UP police, which had then been investigating the case, had taken the four in their custody for a few days for their interrogation, after which they were sent back to the judicial custody.
Meanwhile, a Mathura court on Wednesday remanded Kappan and others, in the UP STF's custody, inviting a superior court's objection to hearing the STF's plea on a day when it was to hear the bail applications of the accused.
Mathura CJM Anju Rajput remanded the four accused in STF's custody for two days, said prosecution counsel Brijmohan Singh.
The STF, which had been transferred the case from the state's Crime Branch belatedly on October 18, had approached the CJM Rajput's court on Monday, seeking their police custody, but she had deferred the hearing on the plea to Wednesday.
Wednesday was also the day slated by Additional District Judge (ADJ) Amar Singh to hear the bail pleas of three of the four accused, barring that of Kappan.
ADJ Singh took exception to the CJM's decision to hear the STF's plea for the police custody of the four on Wednesday when the CJM, after hearing the matter in the morning, also reserved her order and gave it in the evening with the police diary and other prosecution document lying in her court.
ADJ Singh considered the CJM's conduct of hearing the STF plea for the police custody of the accused on November 4 as an obstruction in the functioning of his court.
(with inputs from PTI)
